


Grounded

by coffeehousehaunt



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: And nothing you say will convince me otherwise, Angst, Bisexual Alex Danvers, Character Study, Flying, Gen, Kara and Alex were delinquent little shits before Jeremiah died, Not A Happy Ending, Some bullying towards the middle, The Danvers Sisters - Freeform, They should come with a warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6806479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeehousehaunt/pseuds/coffeehousehaunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara, flying, and the first few weeks at the Danvers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grounded

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose there's a _slight_ deviation from canon re: the outcome of Kara's first flight--but you still can't convince me that they didn't do that more than once.

Eliza and Jeremiah expect her to cry. Kara can tell; they talk in quiet voices with her; longer, lingering touches. There's gentle smiles and explanations instead of sharp words, crisp instructions, like there are with Alex. 

But she holds her jaw firm. She is Kara of El. One of the seven Great Families of Krypton. Her mother is-was-a judge. Her aunt was a warrior. 

_You have a warrior's heart, Kara. The heart of a hero._ Her aunt's words. And her mother's. 

Protecting Kal-El was a warrior's task. 

_Don’t use your powers,_ They tell her; _It’s for your protection_. 

_The earth doesn’t need another hero._

They talk to her like she's a child. But she is still Kara of El. 

//

When Kal-El hands her over to the Danvers, Kara still can't fly. 

The sun is bright, here--so much brighter than anything she's ever experienced. The weight of it settles on her skin like armor, like her mother's charge. 

The days tick by. Every day, Kara waits. To fulfill her mission. To be ready. To be _able_. Sounds get louder. Her vision gets sharper. She feels… different? The longer it goes on. But she can’t fly. Her strength comes in spurts. Sometimes the door to the refrigerator seems too heavy to move; other times, well… 

They’ve had to replace it once already.

Alex looks at her sidelong, squinty, in the bedroom they share. "Are you always this serious?" 

Kara sits out in the sun all day--She overhears Alex asking Eliza if she's an "iguana". 

Later, Kara asks Eliza what an iguana is. Eliza stammers before explaining. Reptile. Cold-blooded. Small. Sits in the sun to regulate its body temperature. 

"I'm not a reptile." Kara informs Alex that evening, although—maybe she is, on this planet? Alex raises one eyebrow and looks at her coolly. "Good for you?" Like she doesn't know what Kara's talking about. But Kara thinks she sees a flush rise up Alex's neck. She thinks Alex's heart is beating harder, but she can't tell if she's seeing it, or hearing it--or making it up in her head. Kara rolls over and turns her back to Alex so that Alex can't see her jaw clenched, working not to shake. 

Just before sunset, in the last rays of the sun, Kara jumps. Every day. Pushes against the ground. Pulls up towards the sky. 

Her feet always meet the ground again heartbeats later. Sometimes it seems to stretch on, and on, and her heart starts to lift-- 

Only to feel the shock travel up through her legs, all the more surprising for the hope. All the more disappointing for the surprise. 

Sometimes she doesn't keep her feet, either. 

It's one of those nights. Nights where she falls. Hard. 

It's been weeks since Kal-El brought her here. The school is dim, and stifling, and full of children who are poorly disciplined and seem better-studied in cruelty and avoiding responsibility. Alex halfheartedly pretends to be interested in hanging out with her (whatever that's supposed to mean), but mostly it involves taking the bus home with Kara, sitting her down in front of the TV, putting on a movie--then going upstairs and calling her friends. 

The shock of the fall doesn't hurt--it never _hurts_ , not really--but something breaks, beyond the physical. Somewhere inside her. 

And she cries. 

She hears footsteps, the shudder of the ground as they get closer, and she wants to stop crying, wants to stifle her tears and square her jaw and be strong—be strong for her family, her house--but her body's racked by a force that, far more than any fall she's ever taken, feels like it's going to break her in half. 

"Kara?" She didn't think Alex gave her any thought. But there's a note in her voice that Kara's never heard before. It’s not enough to ease the sobs that rip through her, but part of her feels lighter for it. 

“Kara, what happened?” 

Kara can’t answer. She doesn't think she can answer in English. Alex hates it when she speaks Kryptonese. It embarrasses her when Kara struggles with words at school. Makes her pull away. Afraid to associate. 

Warm hands, tentative and careful, touch her shoulder. Kara curls in on herself. She hears Alex call for Eliza and Jeremiah. Kara curls tighter in on herself, and there's a long few minutes where it's just Kara, Alex's presence featherlight and not nearly enough to cut through the storm. 

"Sweetie, are you hurt?" 

"She's not hurt, Eliza." 

She cries because she's never going to fly. Because she failed Kal-El. Because she failed her parents, and her house, in the one thing they asked her to do for them. Their last wish. 

She cries because Eliza isn't Alura. Because Alura died _twenty-four years ago_ , but her face and the tears in her eyes and the warmth of her arms feels like it was last week. Twenty-four years and twenty thousand light-years gone. And Kal-El--

They have nothing in common. His Kryptonese is broken and almost indecipherable. She failed to pass the flame on to him. Out of everything she remembers, she's the only thing left. 

And she can't even fly. 

At some point, she physically can't cry anymore. Just can't. She comes to, and Eliza is sitting next to her on her bed, stroking her hair. Not saying anything. When she's steady enough, Eliza hands her a glass of water. It's gone in two gulps. 

While Eliza's refilling the glass, Alex slips into the room, quiet as a shadow--except, Kara thinks, there's another heartbeat, roaring alongside her own. It might just be from all the crying, though. 

She doesn't hear the familiar creak of Alex's bed springs. After a moment-- 

"I'm sorry for being a jerk." Comes Alex's voice out of the darkness. 

What is she supposed to say? That it's okay? Kara doesn't reply. It's hard enough to breathe as it is. 

The rush of the tap cuts off, and there's the sound of footsteps as Eliza returns with the glass, and Alex slips into bed so quickly and silently Kara's not even sure if Eliza notices she's there. 

//

When it does come, flying is a lonely, aching experience. In another world, it would have marked her as a _hero_ ; would’ve marked her coming into her place in this world. Her inheritance. 

Instead, she’s high up—so, so high—and she’s as empty-handed, as bare, as purposeless as she was before. She _wants_ it to be beautiful—it is, she _knows_ it is, somewhere—but it only seems to cement the wrongness of this world. _Her_ wrongness in this world. Her irrelevance. 

Jeremiah still encourages her to blend in. Alex has stopped ignoring her, has started making an effort to include her in what she does, but Kara can tell that all her efforts just pain Alex, and it makes things harder between them. They come home from some social event and Alex barely speaks to her—and they share a room. 

Something was supposed to _change_. 

//

That night seems to have well and truly broken something down inside of her. Now, she does cry, or at least find tears welling up—seemingly inexplicably. She finds herself digging her fingernails into her palms and gritting her teeth in the middle of math class, in the middle of a run in gym, in the hallways between classes and on the bus. 

And, of course, at night. It’s always worse without the riot of the school to distract her. 

She can’t cry, though; can’t cry, with Alex there. Alex resents her enough already. She clenches her jaw and forces her breathing even, forces her windpipe open. It aches like something’s going to tear. 

The unfairness-the wrongness—of the situation washes over her again—huddled in a room that isn’t hers, cared for by the very people she’s supposed to be stronger than, supposed to _take care of_ , asked to blend in, to hide away, to forget her mission and everything she left behind—

And she can’t even cry. 

A ragged, shuddering gasp escapes her throat at that; immediately, she grabs the edge of her pillow and stuffs it over her mouth, muffling the sound of her breathing. She struggles to regain control, ears straining for any sign that Alex heard her. 

The thrum of Alex’s heartbeat skips, then speeds; the curl of her limbs against the sheets and the shift of the mattress tells Kara that she’s tensed, alert, but silent. 

Kara squeezes her eyes shut and digs her fingers into the back of the pillow until the material gives. She shakes against the pillow and the agonizing drag of her breath into her lungs seems like it fills the room. Her throat _hurts_. 

She waits. For Alex to say something. To get mad. Get up. Fall asleep. But there’s just the sound of Alex’s heartbeat, her breathing, high enough to indicate tension. Listening. Every hiccup in her breath, every hard swallow on a sob—Kara tries as hard as she can to silence it. She can hear the skip in Alex’s heartbeat whenever a sound escapes. The night becomes one long blur of suspension. 

At some point, Alex falls asleep again. Kara’s not sure when the switch happens. The steady slow sound of her heart and the shallow of her breathing. She’s not sure when it happens, but she knows; Alex’s hands have unclenched. Her own start to loosen in kind. 

At some point, Kara slips into unconsciousness alongside Alex. 

//

The next day at school, she’s so tired she slips into Kryptonese without thinking about it. 

It takes the instructor’s bewildered expression to even alert her to the fact that she’s done something incorrect. 

Then the deadly silence that’s settled over the classroom sinks in, and she can feel the heat rising up her face, her ears. She doesn’t hear anything for the rest of class—actually, she hears everything. The whispers of the kids in the classroom (talking about her; she grits her teeth and tries to make herself as transparent as the walls when she looks at them). The instructors in the rooms around them. Every. Single. Thing. 

By the time the bell rings, her thoughts are as disorganized and jangling as the sound itself. Everything is a confusing blur of color and sound and she’s not sure what’s on the outside of things and what’s on the inside—

Something jolts her sharply, and she stumbles. 

“Hey, freak!” Everything whirls; colors and depths shift and re-organize and re-order themselves. 

Oh, no. 

Ben’s come around to make another pass, a hideous smirk on his face.  Kara’s frozen; she could put him through the wall. She could. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. She thinks at night what her mother would have thought of him, what his fate would’ve been on Krypton assaulting another person like this. 

But she’s frozen by the reminder in Jeremiah’s voice when he tells her _the Earth doesn’t need another hero_ , that she needs to blend in and not draw attention to herself, she could _hurt someone_ , and her mother’s admonishments to use her gifts not to harm, but to protect. To defend. 

“What was that in class? Was that supposed to be Chinese or something? Or are you just a—“ 

“It’s German, dipshit!” 

It’s the first time Kara’s heard Alex swear. Or raise her voice at all, actually. Kara’s just as dumbstruck as the rest of the small group that’s gathered around them as Alex storms in. 

Ben looks stupefied for a good five second before remembering to respond. “No it’s not.” 

“Like you’d know the difference.” Alex sneers at him. She turns to Kara, her expression softening, and holds out her hand. 

And then she says something in Kryptonese. 

It’s not important what it is—Kara isn’t sure what she’s saying, actually; it’s heavily accented and doesn’t seem to be a coherent sentence—it’s that she _says_ it. And the effect that it has on the cluster of kids. 

Kara realizes she’s expected to take Alex’s hand, after a moment; tentatively, she reaches out and places her hand in Alex’s. Alex’s smile widens a touch, and she squeezes Kara’s hand reassuringly—and then tugs her through the gaggle of (shamefaced) kids and away from Ben as fast as possible. 

Alex pulls Kara onto the bus and into the seat next to her. She looks around, closes her eyes briefly, and lets out a sigh. She opens them again and sees Kara looking at her. She smiles slightly. 

“How did you…?” Kara asks after a moment. Jeremiah? Does Jeremiah know Kryptonese? 

Alex looks up at Kara from where she's reached into her backpack for something; her lips quirk in a small smile. “You talk in your sleep, ” She says softly. Not unfriendly. 

“Oh.” Kara looks down and frowns. 

“Hey.” A warm hand rests on her shoulder. Kara’s head jerks up. Alex is looking at her uncertainly, but there’s a small hopeful lift to the corners of her mouth—and a sadness that reminds Kara forcefully that they’ve been sharing the room where she’s cried herself to sleep every night, lately. “I’m sorry—I kinda suck at this.” Alex’s arm slides a little further across her shoulder, tentatively. 

Kara nestles against Alex’s side, just as tentatively. It’s not that the Danvers’ don’t hug her, it’s just that she hasn’t been this close to anyone for longer than a few minutes since—

This is so very different from that. 

Kara squeezes her eyes shut and burrows in against Alex. She hears a huff of breath that’s half-laugh, half-pain. “Ow. Ow, okay, Kara—Easy.” 

“Sorry.” Kara says, pulling back a little bit; but Alex keeps her arm around Kara’s shoulders; keeps her close. 

“It’s alright.” 

The bus starts to amble forward; the jolting and swaying translates through both of their bodies. 

Slowly, though, Kara starts to relax against Alex. Starts to focus on the body humming right next to hers. 

By the time they reach their stop, Kara’s not the only one who seems reluctant when they have to pull away and stand to get off the bus. 

//

Kara drops down onto the roof outside her bedroom window, nearly silently. Crouches down and peers into the open window. 

“Alex!” She hisses. 

“Where did you go?” 

Alex is livid, the kind of livid she gets when she’s scared of getting caught, but Kara’s head is still full of the indigo curve of the sky. Expansive and endless. 

Alex swallows, her brow furrowing. Alex sees the change in Kara. 

And Alex says yes. 

//

That first flight with Alex, flying becomes beautiful. 

It’s Alex. Alex pulls back the blanket of isolation, grounds the lonely height of it all and soon Kara realizes that she was just as afraid of floating away into space as she was of never leaving the ground. 

Now, the rush of the atmosphere against her skin shimmers along her nerves like the line of lights along the water; makes her breath catch. 

When they land again, they’re talking about the stars, and Alex is breathless. 

So is Kara. 

“… That one’s the Bear.” Alex traces out a vague shape with her finger against the sky. 

Kara’s nose crinkles. “That doesn’t even _look_ like a bear.” 

“Okay, genius. What did _your_ constellations look like?” Kara jerks her head over to look at Alex, but there's a smile that softens the challenge, an invitation in the lift of one eyebrow, and Kara's never _not_ aware of the entire world weighing on her tongue--but now, she feels it start to slide. 

They lay out on the lawn tracing shapes out on the stars, exchanging words and patterns, until they’re both numb with exhaustion. They fall asleep out there on the grass, Kara wrapped around Alex’s larger form like an awkwardly-sized blanket. 

Still. Alex doesn’t get cold. 

//

They stay up late, huddled under the sheets on either of their beds, whispering in a strange mix of English and Kryptonese that gets ever more heavily Kryptonese as Alex absorbs the words and concepts. Alex is voracious. 

//

Over the next few months, Kryptonese becomes a private language they share. They're so, so careful never to drop it into their conversations at school--but they've taken to talking about boys in front of Jeremiah and Eliza; even conversations about homework become a covert thrill, and they (Alex) get more and more brazen as the weeks go on. Eliza looks from the one of them to the other, somewhere between perplexed, amused, and terrified. 

One day, they're talking about a party Alex has been invited to. And how the boy that Alex likes is going to be there. Jeremiah happens to be walking through the living room at the same time. 

" _I think I'm gonna tell Mom and Dad that I'm going to a movie with Jaymee and Ana._ " Alex says, picking at the chair she's sitting on, legs half-folded under her. Weird--Alex's heart beats harder and a flush rises on her skin when she says Ana's name.

" _Not unless you want to be grounded til you're thirty._ " Jeremiah's voice floats out of the kitchen. His Kryptonese is clunky, the word "grounded" is a literally translated idiom that probably means something closer to "never fly again", but there's no mistaking his meaning. Alex and Kara's eyes go wide. 

They hold their breath until he walks back through the living room and up the stairs before looking at each other and breaking into hysterical giggles. 

They're a little more careful after that. 

// 

They're careful. They are.

Until they're not careful enough.

The night after the men in black follow them home--how did Kara _miss_ them?--Jeremiah calls them into the living room. 

He's going to be leaving the lab he works at and starting a new job. He'll have to travel a lot, but he'll be working nearby, for the most part. 

Kara feels a weight sinking down on her tongue, bowing her neck. She can feel Jeremiah's gaze on her, and she can't meet it--not because she thinks he's angry. Just the opposite; all she'll see is that gentle understanding that seems to appear whenever she screws up and should've known better. Whenever she hurts someone without meaning to. It doesn't happen often anymore, but when it does, he just looks so endlessly patient. And she knows he's looking at her just like that, right now. 

She didn't use her hearing--she did as Eliza asked. But she knows it all the same. Those men were here because of her. And now Jeremiah, just like Alex, has been hurt because of her. Protecting her. Like she was supposed to be protecting Kal-El. 

Later that night, Alex is quiet. Faces away from her. Kara's restless, mind racing, feet shuffling under the covers. There's an ache in her chest and a flutter in her stomach that she can't place; if she could talk to Alex, talk to _someone_ , it might feel better. 

"Alex." She hisses when she thinks she's about to explode from the pressure under her skin. Alex doesn't move. " _Alex!_ " 

No response. Alex doesn't even seem to stir.

Kara's up on her feet and across the space between their beds before she even thinks about it. " _Alex!_ " Kara prods her with her hand--

\--Maybe a little harder than she meant to, because Alex swats at her hands, so fast and so hard that Kara’s stunned into stillness. 

“ _Don’t_ , Kara.” Alex says sharply. “Go to bed.” 

Kara retreats to the edge of her bed, mind whirling. "I'm sorry," She says, and somehow she's on the verge of tears. 

Alex stiffens. Kara feels her lip tremble, and she _shouldn't_ be crying, shouldn't be making this about her, except she's the reason why all of this is happening to them. To the Danvers and to Alex and Jeremiah. 

One traitorous sniffle makes it out, little more than a wobble in her breath, and Alex is pushing up and turning to face her. Kara ducks her head down, because she doesn't _want_ Alex to have to rescue her, least of all now, but she's already reaching out to touch Kara's arm, her face a shifting storm of emotions. 

Wordlessly, Alex draws Kara in against her, like speaking will shatter her. Kara draws in a deep, shuddering breath and tries to let it out without sobbing. Buries her face against Alex's collarbone and struggles to breathe. 

Alex half-pulls Kara down on the bed next to her; or, she half-falls asleep and tips over. Either way, Kara comes to rest next to her. 

She falls asleep to Alex's heartbeat; her sleepy murmuring, a running-together of Kryptonese and English. 

//

It's their standard greeting; not Kryptonese, no—this is all them, is something they built. Kara's been waiting what feels like a long time to say it; this is Alex's world, Alex's pain. 

Jeremiah was Alex's father, not hers. So when it comes spilling out of her mouth, it’s with relief; a reach out into the dark, into the sky. This bottomless elliptic curve that they’ve found themselves tumbling through together. Because she _can’t_ ; she can’t not reach out. Alex has _always_ caught her. 

She doesn't expect Alex to stiffen and push away. 

"Kara--" 

"Sorry." She doesn't know what it is she needs to be sorry _for_ , but she feels it tumble out of her anyways. 

For what? For speaking to her? What—too soon? For speaking their—

Oh. 

It occurs to her that all of this--

All of this is her fault. Hearing _Kara’s_ language reminds Alex exactly why her father is dead. 

//

In the end, Alex _does_ speak to her again; she apologizes (of course she apologizes; but it's in English)—buries her head against Kara’s shoulder (and doesn’t even _cry_ ) and tells her she doesn’t blame her, it isn’t her fault. And of course Kara forgives her; she’s just relieved to be able to hold her again, even though her body feels as fragile as a hummingbird in Kara’s wrecking-ball arms, but Kara—

Kara doesn’t fly again. 


End file.
